


The Blind Crow

by ImogenSmiley



Series: They Exchanged A Smile - A MultiFandom Collection on Anxiety [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 52 Week Oneshot Challenge, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Catharsis, College, Finding Your Feet, Finding your place, Friendship, Future Fic, GAD, Gen, Growing Up, Home Comforts, Isolation, Maturing, New Experiencing, New Friends, New School, OC, Oneshot, Original Character - Freeform, Painful Likeability, Post Graduation, Routine, falling into place, finding friends, ignorance, mental health, third wheeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImogenSmiley/pseuds/ImogenSmiley
Summary: Asahi has always struggled with his anxiety, but leaving his support system made things even harder.
Series: They Exchanged A Smile - A MultiFandom Collection on Anxiety [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/957636
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	The Blind Crow

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to alternatively name this week's oneshot: this is my fic and I get to choose who to project my insecurities onto.

Graduating from High School had scared all four of them, five if you included Noya, who had to watch his best friend leave him behind. It seemed like everyone knew where they were going and the pieces were falling into place, but Asahi was scared, lonely, and flying blind.

He knew that he was going to be alone, in a brand new school where he knew nobody, and reckoned that most people in his classes would be in the same boat. He just needed to find his feet, but if meeting the first year kids last year had told him anything, he really didn’t give off the best “first impression” vibe, no matter what he did.

Of course, sleeping in, didn’t help him at all. He missed not one, not two, but three of his alarms, and had no time to shave, or do something with his hair. In a frenzy to get to class, he had to just go with the old, reliable, messy bun, he’d do with a toothbrush in his mouth in a rush to go to school. Seemed some things never changed.

He threw on the first thing he could see in his closet to wear, a slouchy beige jumper which had been stretched in the washing machine a few too many times, and hung off one shoulder, and a pair of battered old jeans. Any shoes would do, but his socks didn’t match.

Fortunately, he’d packed his backpack the night before, loading it with new stationary, but he really had to move.

As he ran from his halls of residence toward the main campus, he was grateful for the training camp he had had in the summer, and all of the endurance training they had gone through as a penalty for losing. He made it to his first lecture with just a few minutes to spare.

But, there was only one space left, next to a girl with a jet black, sleek pixie cut, she reminded him of Kiyoko from the minute he sat down beside her. Her eyeliner was heavy and her nail varnish already chipped around the edges but as she nursed a reusable cup filled with iced tea, she looked much more prepared for a college education than he did.

He'd slunk into his seat and fished out his stationary, and took notes, and couldn’t help but ease into the flow of class as the girl beside him flipped her hair or pursed her full glossy lips as she listened to their teacher go over the brief of the syllabus. From the corner of his eye, he could just imagine it was Kiyoko, good old Kiyoko, the reliable and comforting Kiyoko. He could slouch over his notes with her, knot his fingers in his hair with her and not have to worry about looking like a gangster, a bully or a thug with her.

That was, at least, until the lecturer called attendance, frantically, at the end. He apologised for forgetting and blamed the first day’s lack of routine and barked all of the names in quick fire succession. It was then that he heard her name. It broke his concentration and snapped him out of his daydream before he could try and ignore it. He had been too busy waiting to hear his own that he didn’t consider the fantasy his anxious brain had conjured up to cope with feeling so desperately alone.

Her name was Hamatoshi Yukihina.

It suited her so well, much better than ‘Kiyoko #2’. Which annoyed him more than he cared to admit.

But, she didn’t speak to him, and when class concluded, she was quick to get to her feet and exit the room. He watched her go, flabbergasted by the lack of interest in conversation. Other students all around him were breaking apart to explore campus, grab lunch, and he was all alone. Again.

He had fished his phone out of his pocket, put on his headphones and trudged back toward his class, and hoped he would have more luck in making friends tomorrow. It was only the first day.

Suga and Daichi had video called him when their classes were over too, squished into the frame of one phone and filling his screen. It hurt to see that they’d eased so quickly into no longer needing to leave a space for him in the shot. Asahi had lied through his teeth, said he’d talked to a few classmates and tried to find any excuse to get out of the conversation and be alone.

He had to make a better impression tomorrow.

He set more alarms in two minute intervals so there was no chance of missing them, and showered before class. His hair would look decent, and not intimidating. He shaved his face, leaving the stubble goatee he had rocked throughout high school. He felt better, taking deep breaths and drinking lemon tea, pouring it into a reusable cup with a fistful of ice cubes as a reward after the uphill trek from his halls to the lecture theatre.

Choosing what to wear had been harder. He went with a beige v-neck vest and a chocolate brown jacket with skinny jeans. He wore trainers for the walk, and made sure his hair was tied back in a neater bun. He hated how irritated his skin could get when sweat met oily hair on his neck. He had only just finished treating the eczema flare up from the game against Shiratorizawa. He might be an “adult” but he had no self-control when it came to scratching itchy skin.

Of course, to avoid looking like he had just been dragged through a bush backward, he had eyed up the plunge-neck pendants he loved so much and chose to wear one of a crow that rested on his skin just above the v of his shirt. He smiled, striking his cheeks with his palms, mumbling to himself in the mirror.

He could do this, he could do this, he could do this….

He looked better, he felt better and that would be enough. Maybe he’d look nice enough that someone might dare talk to him?

He checked his watch, placed his cup in the side pocket of his backpack and walked briskly out of his room and started his journey to class.

He spotted ‘Kiyoko #2’. Hamatoshi Yukihina, sat in the courtyard with two other pretty girls, they were all sipping drinks from clear cups with thick, metal straws, and his stomach rumbled as he eyed the viscous smoothies. He had skipped breakfast, again. Nausea from eating and being anxious was much harder to bear than nausea from a lack of food.

She looked so normal, so at ease and comfortable. Maybe she had been lucky enough to go to college with friends from school, or maybe she was just that bubbly. Not that she seemed it in class yesterday.

He had quickly averted his gaze and gone into the main building, stopping by the vending machine next to the student-run coffee shop. The queue was wrapping round to out of the door, but their bread smelt glorious.

With eyes bigger than his stomach, he joined the queue to purchase a red bean brioche bun. But, as soon as he had it, he was running late for class. Again. With haste, he had put the food in his bag and rushed toward the lecture theatre. Where, there were just a few empty seats remaining, one of them, beside Hamatoshi Yukihina. He had swallowed, hard and decided to bite the bullet and sit with her again. Maybe he would be able to talk to her this time.

Her eyeliner was heavy, but sharper, the wings that reached from the corners of her eyes neater, wider and bolder than the previous day. Like her deep brown eyes and thick lashes wanted to take flight.

“Morning,” Asahi had offered.

“Morning,” she had replied, reaching into her crimson satchel and producing a chapstick, lacquering her lips with vanilla scented gloss. He had nodded curtly to her and produced his lemon iced-tea from his bag, knocking the tumbler all over the table, contents pouring out of the spout, and crawling along the table, trickling onto his lap, and Yukihina’s short skirt. His cheeks had burned and he’d apologised profusely. But it seemed that that was it for her.

There was no redemption. He should just die.

Frantically, he had tried to mop up the mess with tissue but when he had turned to offer her a tissue for the hem of her skirt, she was gone, her high heeled boots clacking against the stairs as she approached the next nearest vacant seat, three rows above, and diagonal from him. He paled and lowered his head. The entire class had seen him throw iced tea over the table and her skirt. Sure the tea would dry, and it didn’t pool over her crotch, thankfully, but he was so doomed.

The boy sat behind him snorted a laugh, “Nice shot, dude. You just got the pretty girl to move. Way to go.”

Asahi rubbed the back of his neck sheepish and continued to mop up the iced tea.

Maybe tomorrow would be better?

He had been drilling the philosophy of “Tomorrow would be kinder” into his brain after faux pas after faux pas, but the only thing he seemed to have gained from a semester in college was the knowledge that Suga and Daichi had finally become official, and that his new volleyball team were excited to have a decent server on their team.

But he couldn’t coast through three years at university because of a volleyball team. He had been texting Noya a lot, but even he wasn’t available all the time, after all, this was his final year of high school, he had entrance exams to study for, he had practice to attend, trophies to win, a new libero to find and train up with all of his tricks.

Going home for Christmas had been a bad idea, getting to see his old team win matches without him had punched a hole in his gut, and as happy as his friends were to see him, he wondered if there was much more for him. Maybe he should just give up and drop out of college, cut his losses.

Everyone else was moving on and really acing the adult thing, but then there was him, just stuck, unsure of where to go.

University felt bigger when he came back in his second term. He still had no friends, and outside of volleyball practice, there was nobody there that he would talk to. He still felt bad for embarrassing Yukihina-san on the second day of school, even though he doubted the class remembered what had happened.

He had gone to class early, wrapped up in a long caramel coat, his hair down and beating against his scarf. He could tie it up in class if necessary. Cold weather was just as brutal on his flared eczema as sweat.

He was in the queue for a curry bun and a large matcha tea when the girl in front of him in the queue slipped on a napkin in her chunky high heeled shoes and spilt her iced blueberry tea all over his jacket.

The girl had had a much rougher fall, twisting her ankle, eyes welling with tears from the shock landing. Asahi had bent down and offered her a hand, the girl took it without question, her magenta painted nails chipped at the edge. She gazed up at him in horror.

“I am so, so, sorry Asahi-kun.”

“Yukihina-san…” his eyes had widened in realisation. He hadn’t paid her much attention in class, hell, he didn’t meet the eyes of anyone in class after he’d embarrassed her. And suddenly, pot, kettle, black, she had done the exact same thing.

The barista behind the till was babbling incoherently, her box blonde bob swishing around as she begged for one of her colleagues to clean up the mess while she prepared a replacement drink for the poor girl that had fallen. It was their mistake, they should have made sure the shop-front was in top condition, and their failure to do so had resulted in a very expensive iced tea and another student’s coat to be ruined.

Asahi had shaken his head, still in a state of disbelief; how the tables had turned, he was now stood in the middle of the coffee shop, his coat drenched with fruity tea and his classmate frantically apologising.

“Yukihina-san, it’s okay. We’re even now, huh?” he offered, “For the start of last term.”

A nervous laugh had escaped her lips, lacquered with lipstick and gloss. She rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish, “Sorry about that.”

The barista handed her a replacement tea, but she didn’t move, instead, she watched Asahi order his own drink and she slammed a note in front of the barista down before Asahi could grab his wallet. Seemed breakfast was on her.

They walked to the lecture theatre together; they demonstrated a fluency in apologies that neither had anticipated, the back and forth had continued even as the class filled up. They finally chose their seats for the session, two rows from the front, where they’d initially sat.

“I’ve been struggling to see since I moved to the back,” she had admitted, “I was just scared of embarrassing myself.”

Asahi nodded, ducking his head and removing his coat, elbowing the table. With lightning reflexes, the girl beside him had lifted their cups from the table. A ripple of laughter escaped their mouths.

Maybe this wasn’t so hard.

Asahi had never anticipated that he would end up befriending Yukihina-chan, especially after the foolish mistakes he had made at the start of the year, but there he was, and there she was.

Even when their classes no longer lined up, they were rushing to each other’s side. They were texting, using emojis, watching each other play sports. Turned out she was a fair badminton player, and had done exceptionally well in her High School singles competition, losing to her long-time rival Dia-chan. He hadn’t expected it, someone short and curvy to be so agile with a racket, but seeing her play was like watching volleyball again. There was an electricity in her. He’d missed seeing such passion for sport.

They’d tried to teach each other, but failed. Asahi was too aggressive with a racket, and never managed to land a shot in bounds, and Yukihina-chan was awful at aiming with something so heavy and could barely get the volleyball over the net. Most of their trips to the university sports centre ended with them in peals of laughter.

Suga and Daichi had noticed that Asahi actually told stories about university. He wasn’t just talking about how volleyball was going, no, he spoke about the lectures, he spoke about the misadventures, and he spoke about her. He spoke about her a lot.

She was like Noya, always on his mind. It was good to see. They were happy for him.

Those two talked about everything, from hair-care to fashion, to sportswear and homework. Yukihina-chan would buy Asahi’s coffee and breakfast for when he’d inevitably have a lie in before his Monday morning classes, and he would return the favour on Thursdays when she had a seminar for one of her elected modules.

They saved a space for the other and made university easier.

It was nice to have friends. It was nice to have company and someone to laugh with.

Though, he had noticed that she blushed more now. But that was fine, it was warm outside again. It was nothing.

And while Yukihina was there, he knew he would be able to carry on at university. He couldn’t wait for Noya to run and join him too. Two of his favourite people would be together and he would be in blissful comfort for the rest of his degree.

What could possibly go wrong?


End file.
